How to permanently force a companion or any NPC to equip an item
Use these instructions to force an actor, be it an NPC or a companion, to equip an item. Although JIP Companions mod offers a much more user-friendly UI, these instructions are still helpful for forcing NPCs. For example, you can invest a few thousand caps in a caravan merchant. You would expect, in addition to the benefits documented at https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Merchant_Empire, that they get better gear for themselves for better protection. Yet, they still have the initial barebones armor. These commands provide a balanced way to improve their armor while not breaking immersion. You still have to buy/loot and repair the armor before forcing them to equip, which could cost a few thousand additional caps. This avoids making them essential, which would be much more immersion breaking as you wouldn't worry about them dying and losing their skills of 100 repair (Fallout TTW).
Testing environment: Fallout TTW 3.3.2 This means neither the companion or the player will be able to unequip the item. The relevant command does allow this to be reset of course.
Find the item ID you want to equip on your companion
Put the item in an empty container
Open console (~) and click on the container
Execute the command: showinventory
This prints the ID of the item. We'll use this ID on next steps.
Get your companions reference
Center the camera on your companion,
Open the console and click on them
You should see the companions ID on the screen printed at the top
Equip the item Execute the following command to force your companion to always equip an item, without allowing them to change the item. Give them the item you want them to equip upon inventory menu show. You'll need to reference the actor before each command. See previous section.
My companions will hold the weapon I give them but they won't fire. Yes I've given them ammo, and I tried putting the ammo in the trunk, and in the default inventory. Anyone know how to fix this?
Any chance for a function to lock "non-playable" equipment to companions (such as the weapons they come with, for example)? That would be helpful for a modded follower I have.
This is a great mod; I've already endorsed and even recommended it to a few people.
Responding to an old post but ¯\_(?)_/¯ I'm currently searching for a mod that can do this. I'm trying this mod combined with "Companion Dress Up" which I would think would give me a similar result, but doesn't seem to work the way I want still. I wonder if there's a mod out there to just turn off auto equip and adds an equip button.
Edit: "JIP Companions Command and Control" has a feature called "Manage Equipment" that looks promising.
123 comments
Use these instructions to force an actor, be it an NPC or a companion, to equip an item. Although JIP Companions mod offers a much more user-friendly UI, these instructions are still helpful for forcing NPCs. For example, you can invest a few thousand caps in a caravan merchant. You would expect, in addition to the benefits documented at https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Merchant_Empire, that they get better gear for themselves for better protection. Yet, they still have the initial barebones armor. These commands provide a balanced way to improve their armor while not breaking immersion. You still have to buy/loot and repair the armor before forcing them to equip, which could cost a few thousand additional caps. This avoids making them essential, which would be much more immersion breaking as you wouldn't worry about them dying and losing their skills of 100 repair (Fallout TTW).
Testing environment: Fallout TTW 3.3.2
This means neither the companion or the player will be able to unequip the item. The relevant command does allow this to be reset of course.
Find the item ID you want to equip on your companion
Get your companions reference
Equip the item
Execute the following command to force your companion to always equip an item, without allowing them to change the item. Give them the item you want them to equip upon inventory menu show. You'll need to reference the actor before each command. See previous section.
Example of forcing Chavron to permanently equip the Inflitrator:
Unequip Item
Use the following command to uniqupep the item. As documented above, you'll need to reference the actor before running the command:
Sources
https://geckwiki.com/index.php/EquipItem
Notes
No, companion does not use weapon.
If I then give the weapon to them normally, they will then use it.
I am only using a Infinite Ammo Companion so that they do not need ammo all of the time.
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/74171?tab=posts
I will assume by this your mod does not work with things like that.
Shame.
This is a great mod; I've already endorsed and even recommended it to a few people.
Edit: "JIP Companions Command and Control" has a feature called "Manage Equipment" that looks promising.